桜 Sakura 桜
by Asami Gamo
Summary: "All good things come to an end; the Sakura blooms and departs in a week." She died in our world one night, only to awaken as a three year old in another world entirely, as a young Sakura Haruno. (OC!Sakura/Sasuke probably, AU)
1. 献身 Dedication 献身

**ATTENTION: IF YOU WANT TO GET TO WHERE THE STORY ACTUALLY STARTS, GO TO CHAPTER 3 - AKA: THE PROLOGUE. THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS DO NOT CONTAIN ACTUAL WRITING. THERE WILL BE A BOOK 2, AND POSSIBLY 3, NOTIFICATION, BUT I SWEAR ON THE LIFE OF MY BELOVED PUPPY THAT I WILL ONLY UPLOAD THOSE NOTIFICATIONS WITH A CHAPTER FOLLOWING _IMMEDIATELY_ AFTERWARDS. AGAIN, SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.**

 **So this is a story that I've been working on for a while now, but I only recently really decided to write it. I hope you enjoy.**

 **Warning(s): This is a fanfiction that centers around an OC!Sakura, and canon will be ripped to shreds as such. Also, the pairing has not been decided entirely, but it's likely that it will be OC!SakuraXSasuke, but the relationship will be far less unhealthy than canon - if it actually happens. But if you don't ship Sakura/Sasuke this may not be the best story for you.**

 **Disclaimer: I, a lowly fanfiction writer, do not own _Naruto_ , nor any of the characters; I only own my version of Sakura Haruno and the differences between canon and this.**

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 ** _桜 Sakura 桜_**

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 **Dedications**

 _To Mr. Myers_  
 _You who taught me about_  
 _the truth_  
 _of life._  
 _Our paths have parted,_  
 _but my heart_  
 _has not left_  
 _you behind._  
 _This book is yours now._


	2. 始まり Book 1: Beginnings 始まり

**Unfortunately for anyone who may be reading this, this is not an actual chapter either. My apologies.**

 **Warning(s): OC!Sakura, OC!Sakura/Sasuke, AU, etc, etc. If you have something against strong!Sakura, you probably won't like this story, yadda, yadda, yadda. No hate please, if you can't take the changes.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own _Naruto_ ; Kishimoto-sensei does. However, I do own the changes that will come in the future. :)**

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 ** _桜 Sakura_** ** _桜_**

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 **Book** **1**  
 ** _Beginnings_**

 _"My eyes landed on him,  
the innocent boy so hated  
for that which he could not control,  
and I knew I could not  
let him suffer."_

 ** _Prologue  
_** ** _Chapter 1  
Chapter 2_**


	3. 過去 Prologue: Past 過去

**Suiren: Thank you!  
Enny: You make a very good point, and I thank you for pointing that out. Also, thank you for the compliments, and I hope that you enjoy the story to come. :)**

 **Welcome to the first chapter with writing in it! I hope you enjoy it, especially since the previous two chapters haven't had any** ** _real_** **writing in them. Hope you guys aren't too cross with me if that fact annoys you. But fear not, since the story is soon to begin! :D**

 **Warning(s): This is an OC-centric fanfiction, where the OC is reborn into Sakura Haruno. As such, there will be a lot of changes to canon - because while I love _Naruto_ , canon is honestly kind of depressing and sad and I want to change it. Also, OC!Sakura will probably be paired with Sasuke, so consider yourself warned.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own _Naruto_ , nor do I own any of the characters. I own the changes to the story, and my version of Sakura, but that's it.**

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 ** _桜 Sakura 桜_**

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 **Prologue**  
 ** _Past_**

I died in my first life because of alcohol.

My father was a drunk, a heavy alcoholic; he had been since my mom had died in a car accident a few years prior. He couldn't handle the loss of her presence in his life, and so he turned to alcohol in order to cope.

I didn't agree with his coping mechanisms - especially since Mom had died because someone couldn't wait to drive until the buzz of alcohol had left his system. But I still loved my father dearly, despite his shortcomings; I still could recall the time before she had died, when I still called him _Daddy_ and he was kind and loving and encouraged me to do what I loved. And so, in honor of the memory of both my mom and my dad, before he became the coldly detached man who I considered myself related to only by blood, I took care of my father as his life washed down the drain with each gulp of beer he took.

I had to give up on many things I loved in order to take care of my father and pay for everything we needed. If it weren't for my mom's savings, I would have had to sell the house, too; as it was, though, I had to drop out of school to work full-time to pay for everything - including Father's booze.

My sacrifices were disregarded, and I was, instead, rewarded with snide comments, cruel insults, and being called by my mother's name.

I was so afraid that I moved out and lived with a friend; my father was so tripped into his psychosis that it was only a matter of time until he attempted to sneak into my bed and touch me in the way that two lovers might to one another. He didn't notice, of course, but I felt that, with a bit of distance, I might be able to survive like this - at least until he succumbed to his alcohol poisoning.

The evening of my death was like any other; I was late coming to the house because of my last karate competition, which I got first place in. I was planning on making dinner for Father, setting out breakfast, and then catching a cab to go back where I was staying.

I was greeted as I walked through the door, as usual, by my father calling me by my mother's name, talking to me as if I was she. He tried to come on to me, drunk off his ass, and I shoved him away. He snapped out of his psychosis, and, for some reason, he felt the reason to scream profanities, and insults, at me for pushing him away from myself.

I defended myself, explaining that he had tried to kiss me, calling me by my mother's name.

He sneered, then, and told me that I deserved to be raped for pretending to be my mother, wearing my hair as long as her and wearing make-up and her jewelry.

I retorted that I wore my hair long, like her, to keep a part of her with me always; I didn't want to forget, not for a moment, any part of her - not like him, who searched for relief at the at the bottom of a bottle of beer. The make-up was because I was a waitress and was expected to look nice - and I wasn't even wearing it at the time. I wore jewelry that had belonged to her because she had stated in her will that they would be mine, to do with as I pleased. I had just come a karate competition, so the only jewelry I had on at the moment was stud earrings, with my birth-stone in them, and a small heart-shaped locket that held a picture of my entire family in it.

However, Father was not willing to accept my answer, and the argument quickly devolved into a shouting match.

It ended, however, when Father shouted that he wished I would just disappear. At his words, something within me snapped, and I vowed, then, as I drew myself up, that I would never be so selfless as I was for him ever again.

"Fine," I had snapped scathingly, "your wish is my command. You want me to disappear? Very well. I will. Have fun paying the bills."

Before he could say a word, I stormed out of the house and stalked down the street, signalling for a taxi.

I was practically spitting in fury, especially when the taxis all refused to stop for me.

I could hear Father's feet slapping against the pavement behind me, and I prepared to whirl on him, maybe cuss him out a few times. However, I never got the chance to yell at him, express my emotions, and maybe - just maybe - reconcile with him, for a car came careening off the road, coming straight at me.

I didn't even have a chance to scream before my world exploded in a dizzying display of blindingly white headlights, the sound of screeching car tires, the acrid stench of burnt rubber, and excruciating, agonizing pain. It all went dark, and I found myself falling into the fathomless blackness.

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 **And that's the first chapter with writing in it! Hope you enjoyed it!**

 **Question of the chapter: Who is your favorite character in _Naruto_?**

 **Ja ne!**


	4. 目覚め Chapter 1: Awakening 目覚め

**And here we have the next chapter! Hope you enjoy!**

 **Warning(s): OC-centric fanfiction where OC is born into Sakura Haruno. Strong Sakura. Probably OC!Sakusasu. AU. You know, the usual.**

 **Disclaimer: Still don't own _Naruto_. But I do own my version of Sakura, and an adorable puppy named Suna because she's a blonde terrier mix that I love so much.**

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 ** _桜 Sakura 桜_**

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 **Chapter 1  
 _Awakening_**

My consciousness first awoke in my second life when I was three-years old.

I was lying in my bed, trying my very best to fall asleep. I was too young, then, to yet understand that when one tries to fall asleep, sleep creeps further from their fingertips, and so I tried and tried. My mind, still that of a 3-year old girl's, gathered the feeling of my silk sheets sliding over my skin as I breathed, in-out, in-out; the scent of the blooming cherry blossoms - my namesake - outside the window of my room, swept in on the breeze; the melodious whistle of the wind, as it rustled the blossoms together and passed through the screen; the taste of sweet mint, courtesy of my toothpaste, layered on my tongue; and the bleached light of the full moon pouring into my room and creating an ethereal glow, filtered by the cherry blossoms and the screen fit over my window, and it created a compelling lullaby out of the senses. I was about to finally succumb to the lure of slumber when something seemed to click into its place in my mind.

With all the force of a fifty-pound weight falling on to the ground from a thousand-foot distance, my adult mind awoke, completely overwhelming my 3-year old brain.

Now, I cannot tell you with utmost certainty why it was then that my adult mind awoke, nor what triggered it, but I do have a few theories, one of which I believe is the correct one: the brain. I am sure you have heard that your brain is only finished in its development when you are in your late 20's, early 30's. Before then, the brain is constantly growing, adapting, changing; that is part of the reason why the drinking age is 21, to try to prevent young brains from being damaged by the poison that society calls alcohol - it doesn't really work, but it's certainly a nice try.

The drinking age is nice to know and all, but it doesn't really have much to do with this, 'cause I was only three, right? Well, sort of.

The age at which you begin to remember things is uncertain, but scientists, at least when I was still alive, are trying to discover the age with certainty. However, what they do know is that when you are about 10-years old, your memories, for lack of a better word, _crystallize_ , and you remember things much more clearly and for a longer amount of time.

I certainly wasn't 10 at the time, but I hypothesize that my adult mind was allowed to awaken then because my brain was, at the very least, developed enough to be able to handle the hefty weight of my adult mind.

However . . . at first, it was excruciating.

My brain, that was used to three-year old thoughts and three-year old experiences, was not prepared in the slightest to deal with the experiences of a 20-some-year old woman who had seen, and lived through, far too much - and all of her thoughts. And so a splitting headache erupted between my eyes.

It was so very painful I couldn't think, couldn't even breathe. I convulsed, twitching wildly as I laid there in my bed. My mouth opened in a silent scream, but I couldn't make a noise, not a sound.

I do not know how long I laid there, left in the throes of excruciating agony, but I eventually pulled my minds together from the shreds the pain had ripped it into.

Hastily, I created a small pen and forced all perceptions of the pain into it, mentally shutting the door and locking it. Now, that technique had not ever failed me, but still, I was left stunned beyond words at how well it worked upon this occasion; I felt only a faint echo of the pain, instead of the halved agony I would feel under normal circumstances.

But I disregarded the mystery in favor of discovering what had happened to me. The last thing I remembered, prior to the pain and being 3-years old, was being hit by a car, driven by a drunk, after I'd stormed out of the house in a fit of rage at my father.

I bit back a surge of regret at thought my father; it was likely I had died after being hit by that car, leaving my father all alone - him against the world. But I scolded myself; he had wanted me to leave his life, and I had. He was my past, and he didn't matter - not anymore.

I looked down at my hands, and I swallowed hard at the sight that greeted me.

 _Those are . . . my hands?_

It was tiny, the skin an unfamiliar milky pale.; the fingers were slender, despite their small size. Gone were the scars that had littered my knuckles and palms and the backs of my hands from karate, self-defense, judo, climbing trees; those hands, weathered by years and years of use, were familiar, but these child's hands that moved as I commanded them, unscarred and soft to the touch, were not.

 _Who am I?_

It did not take me long to realize that I must have been reincarnated - that or after I had been hit by that car, I had somehow reverted back to my child's form. Frankly put, reincarnation seemed likely - far more likely than the latter option, despite being logically improbable.

I was not a religious person; I didn't believe there was anything after death - at least not anything worth mentioning. I did believe that if souls were a real thing, that their energy must fit under the Law of Energy - never created, nor destroyed. Only changed.

I had thought that reincarnation might be possible, only improbable, but I had not ever believed I might be important enough to warrant such a fate.

As I slid out of bed, intent on discovering, once and for all, whether I was still myself, only somehow younger, or someone new, I pondered the idea that I had, perhaps, slipped through the cogs of cosmic reckoning - too insignificant to warrant notice from anyone, even as I traveled a path ne'er traveled before. It was the likeliest explanation I could find.

I had not done anything amazing, worth notice; I had defining characteristics that were not rare, was never too different than anyone else. The strangest part of me was my intense love for all things artistic, including anime and manga, but even that art of me was not too unusual - plenty of people I had met in my first life were the exact same way, some even crazier about it than I was.

The only thing I had done that was even barely worth mention was taking care of my father, and I had failed at that sorely, miserably, entirely.

So the most reasonable explanation, as I have stated before, was that my second life was simply an overlooked mistake.

I peered into the large mirror hanging over my dresser, having crossed the entire room while lost in my thoughts, and upon seeing the face staring back at me in my reflection, pale with chubby cheeks, sea green eyes, and cotton candy pink bangs hiding a slightly abnormally large forehead, a piercing scream rendered the air.

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 **And she's figured it out!**

 **What do you guys think? I know that the plot hasn't really begun yet, but you're getting to know OC!Sakura a little bit more. In the next chapter, the story will really start to pick up speed, but right now it's kind of introductions to the MC. But I hope you guys don't mind too much.**

 **Answer: I have a lot of characters that I really love; I don't really have a favorite. But one of my all-time favs is Itachi Uchiha - as well as Sasuke Uchiha.  
**

 **Question of the chapter: What do you think of Sakura Haruno?**

 **Ja ne!**


	5. 会議 Chapter 2: Meeting 会議

**lizyeh2000: Thank you! And here's the update you asked for! :)  
** **Vatican: Thank you for the advice. The chapters to follow should be a lot longer; the first couple, maybe including this one, are to introduce readers to the story. And I'm also surprised that people have bothered to leave comments, but they did, so what can you do? (Not trying to be offensive, please don't take offense Reader-san!) And again, thank you for the advice and that you bothered to read!  
** **DarkDust27: Thank you so much! I hope you continue to enjoy the story!  
** **Similar Hues: Thank you for notifying me of my mistake; I hadn't even noticed that. Also, thanks for the criticism! It is much appreciated. As for my OC, thanks very much for all of the compliments involving her. I completely agree with you considering canon!Sakura and Sasuke's relationship; it was so unhealthy it's not even funny. And I promise to do my best to make the relationship as natural as possible - I say try because I'm not sure I can succeed, but I will do my absolute best. And thanks again. :D  
** **NatNicole: Thank you! And I absolutely adore Itachi; he's just so amazing. As for Sakura, well, you'll find out how I feel about her at the end of the chapter. ;)**

 **Again, thanks to everyone who's commented so far! I read through everything you say, and I really appreciate every single word!**

 **Now, let's get this party started!**

 **Warning(s): This is, as I've stated before, an OC-centric fanfiction, where my OC is reborn into Sakura Haruno's body. Because my OC knows about _Naruto_ , there will be a lot of changes to canon. OC!Sakura will probably be paired with Sasuke, so you have been warned.**

 **Also, forgot to mention beforehand, but this story, in part, has been inspired by _Sakura_ by Darkpetal16, as well as _Dreaming of Sunshine_ by Silver Queen, _Clockwork and a Teacup_ by Artsome, _Darkest Before Dawn_ by writer168, _The Lily of the Valley_ by Holiday Thorne, _Atlas_ by Holiday Thorne, _Weight of the World_ by Tsume Yuki, _Shadowed Sun_ by Darkpetal16, _Decaying Bluebells_ by Darkpetal16, and _Chipped Mask_ by Darkpetal16. Yeah, I absolutely adore Darkpetal16's work.**

 **Disclaimer: I, a lowly fanfiction writer by the name of Asami Gamo, do not own _Naruto_. I do, however, own my version of Sakura, and the changes to canon.**

 **Hope you enjoy!**

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 ** _桜 Sakura 桜_**

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 **Chapter** **2**  
 _ **Meeting**_

In my second life, I was Sakura Haruno.

Sakura Haruno, secondary main character to the _Naruto_ franchise, female member of Team 7, female member of Team Kakashi, fan-girl for Sasuke Uchiha, the girl who fell in love with Sasuke Uchiha, student of Tsunade Senju, wielder of chakra enhanced strength, wielder of the Strength of a Hundred Seal, wielder of the Creation Rebirth Technique, wielder of the Ninja Art: Creation Rebirth - Strength of a Hundred Technique, creator of an antidote to Sasori's poison within one night, the one who defeated Sasori of the Red Sand with help from Lady Chiyo, skilled healer, summoner of Katsuyu, married to Sasuke Uchiha by the end of the series, mother of Sarada Uchiha - daughter of Sasuke Uchiha. And she had countless other achievements.

Needless to say, after awakening to my adult mind in my second life, I spent the first few months afterwards denying what had happened to me.

It was one thing to have been reborn and still remember my past life - a logical impossibility; it was completely another to be reborn as the main female character in a popular franchise - one that I knew front to back, back to front, and upside down.

 _Naruto_ was my first anime; it was what got me into anime in the first place, with its diverse cast of characters, all unique and different, and its interesting story-lines. Kishimoto-sensei's art style attracted me like an ant to sugar-water, a moth to flame; his deliberate use of each stroke of his pen and the colors he used was just so incredible to me. And sure, there were plot-holes, things that just didn't make sense, but there were plot-holes in just about every anime, manga, and story in existence - even if there was only one.

There were times when, in my past life, I stopped watching _Naruto_ , stopped reading it, when something got in the way or I was frustrated with the turn the story-line had taken. But I never stopped watching it for long; _Naruto_ was too deeply ingrained into my biology to be left behind so easily.

I had died before I had gotten to see the end of the anime, but I _had_ read the manga all the way through. Multiple times.

I had my favorite characters (the Uchiha brothers, Naruto himself, Madara), my least favorite characters (Zetsu, Kaguya), and the characters I thought who had a lot of wasted potential (Sakura Haruno).

And now I was part of the story I was so fond of. As the character who I thought had so much wasted potential as a heroine.

For about three, maybe four, months, I spent the time denying everything around me, convinced this was somehow a hallucination produced by a dying brain, and that I might fall, once more, into the darkness at any moment. I pushed my second parents away, pulling into a shell of defense, and I barely spoke.

I know I frightened them, my second parents, but I forced myself not to care; I already had parents before them - or rather, I did. They were gone now, but I had no need for them; I was able to take care of myself now.

I did not leave the house unless I was dragged to the medics by a concerned Mebuki Haruno or a wary Kizashi Haruno.

The first time I went, I was diagnosed as chakra sensitive. It was a deathblow to the concept of a ninja career for myself; ninjutsu, genjutsu, even taijutsu that required chakra, it would all be too painful for me to attempt. My own chakra coils caused me pain. However, it was not pain in the truest sense of the word; the pain was not actually created by my chakra coils but my mind. I was not used to chakra. It was a foreign thing, and I didn't understand it.

The medics said I wouldn't ever be a ninja.

I didn't care, though, and the diagnosis only gave me another excuse to stay inside the house - as I wanted; being around ninja, feeling their chakra surrounding me, pushing at me, well, it caused me to cough. A lot.

Chakra was an odd thing. Inside of me, it was warm, almost like hot chocolate or coffee running through my veins, and I could feel its flow rise and fall with every breath I took, in and out. Outside of myself, chakra felt dense, heavy (I would later to discover that the densest of the chakra was Nature Energy, the Energy that Jiraiya and Naruto used, in conjunction with their own chakra, in order to go into Sage Mode), and I would sometimes choke on it as I breathed. I would choke and cough and flail about until it dawned on me that _it was just air_.

Eventually, as I got older, I would become entirely comfortable with chakra; I would find my chakra-sensitivity evolve into an ability to sense chakra from extreme distances - much like Karin. I would, in the future, become able to discern between clones, detect traps because they would have chakra clinging to them, tell where battles were fought, see through Transformation Jutsu, develop an intense resistance to genjutsu of all types, and track someone halfway across the planet. I could find someone in a crowd of shinobi because my chakra sensitivity allowed me to sense the difference between different people's chakra.

But at the moment, chakra was a huge pain in my ass.

Eventually, after a few weeks of only staying at home because walking out of the house meant coughing up a metaphorical lung, I began to get cabin fever, and so I begged my parents to allow me to get out, go to the park or something. (By this point, I had begun to think of them as my parents, and our relationship had improved greatly.) But out of concern for my "delicate health," they refused.

My obstinate stubbornness flared up at their refusal, and I continued to press the issue, butting heads with my Otou-san, Kizashi Haruno - who was very nearly as stubborn as I was. However, that _almost_ was forgotten when Okaa-san, Mebuki Haruno, was the one to relent, allowing me to go to the park as I'd asked.

It was strange to be allowed to go out, only 3-years old, on the streets, by myself, with no supervision. But I supposed that living in one of the largest shinobi villages in this world gave you a certain level of assured protection that gives parents the confidence to let their children to go out and play alone - and I had no doubt that Okaa-san let me out in the hopes of me making friends with some of the other children I'd seen passing by the house through the window; never leaving the house, I was the very definition of a loner. Occasionally, my parents would bring over some of their friends for dinner, ones who had kids, in the hopes that I might socialize, but I refused.

I wasn't likely to socialize this time either, but I wasn't going to tell Okaa-san that; she might've taken away my right to leave the house, and I wasn't going to risk it. She did have an enormous temper - something I could identify with.

So, dressed in a sleeveless red and white qipao like canon Sakura's, I ran to the park near my house.

I could taste, and feel, the chakra in the air, but it was not so heavy that I started coughing. But as I sat under a tall willow tree that hid me almost completely from view of the playing children and tried to discern whose chakra it was I was sensing so nearby, I began to cough.

It was a strong chakra, watching over the children as they played together - almost like it was guarding them from harm. I could tell they, the owner of that powerful chakra, was suppressing their chakra, judging by the compressed sensation that accompanied it, but they couldn't hide it completely - not from me. And there was the fact that it didn't feel like they were suppressing their chakra to the best of their abilities. Either way, I could still sense a tang of flickering electricity, somehow like a storm gathering above me, as well as a taste of cool mint, that was laced all the way through that chakra.

My body trembled as I was wracked by the coughs that came with my chakra sensitivity, but I still managed to look up, into the curtain of leaves of the tree next to mine. My eyes met his, the owner of the minty storm-like chakra, and a smirk tugged at the corner of my lips as I continued to wheeze. He was an ANBU, wearing the standard gray uniform and a white and red mask designed to look like a dog.

I knew who he was.

And since I knew, I also knew why exactly I had noticed him; he had unconsciously allowed me to do so. He had underestimated the children here - but I didn't blame him; they were irritating, squealing brats. But the children were all too young or too inexperienced to be much of a concern when it came to sensing, or revealing, his presence. If it weren't for my sensitivity to all things chakra related, I wouldn't have noticed him at all.

I let go of my chakra sense, withdrawing my . . . consciousness, for lack of a better term back into myself and building up my defenses that allowed me to (mostly) protect myself from my sensitivity. I still continued to cough, though, choking on the chakra in the air, as I maintained eye-contact with the Dog ANBU.

I was surprised at what I saw in his mismatching eyes, one crimson and the other black as obsidian; there was, of course, surprise and shock and amazement, which I had expected, but there was also a fair degree of concern - likely since I was currently coughing up a metaphorical lung. He didn't even know who I was, but still, he was concerned for me. It was amazing.

Suddenly the expression in his eyes changed to wariness, and I watched in mild surprise as he flickered out of existence, disappearing to go off somewhere else. I could feel his chakra disappear off my radar - at least the radar that I had when I wasn't allowing myself to sense too much; I wondered idly if I were to open up my senses, would I sense him finding some other place to hide or would I just sense him leaving? But I disregarded the thought, especially as I was wracked with another set of heavy coughs - as if in retribution for considering such an idea.

"You okay?"

I looked up at hearing the voice and immediately discovered why it was that the Dog ANBU had departed in such a hurry.

A tangled mop of golden hair sticking up in all directions, bright blue eyes, the same shade as the sky, set in a lightly tanned face with adorable, chubby cheeks with whiskers on them. I was face-to-face with the jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Kurama, the reincarnation of the youngest of the Sage of Six Paths' sons, the one who warmed the hearts of so many who were his enemies, the one who won the war beside Sasuke Uchiha, the only one who could get through Sasuke Uchiha.

"Huh?" I mumbled, only to be rewarded for my efforts by breaking into another round of coughing.

"I said, are you okay?" the boy repeated, the brilliant smile on his face dimming with uncertainty and fear.

I closed my eyes and nodded as I continued to heave with the coughs. Then I opened them once I was finished.

 _My eyes landed on him, the innocent boy so hated for that which he could not control, and I knew I could not let him suffer._

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 **And that's the end of that chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed!**

 **As per a request from a reader, I tried to make this chapter a bit longer. The chapters should continue to get longer, but please, everyone be patient; the ball hasn't really started rolling with this story, and besides, I do have a life, y'know? As much as I wish it isn't true, I have school and homework and I can't always work solely on my stories.**

 **Seeing as it's really late, I've got to go now.**

 **Answer: I think that Sakura Haruno is a character whose potential was entirely wasted by Kishimoto-sensei. She had so much potential, could have been so much more than she is, but Kishimoto-sensei's inexperience in writing female characters was her downfall - that's part of the reason why I undertook this project in the first place. I wanted to explore the Sakura that _could_ have been, the Sakura that we _deserved_. And no amount of Sarada Uchiha is going to fix the screw-up that Kishimoto-sensei made with the cherry-blossom kunoichi. Or can I really even call her that anymore, since she's mostly (if not solely) a stay-at-home Mom to Sarada. But whatever, the point still stands.**

 **Question of the chapter: If you met Naruto Uzumaki in person, what would you tell him/do?**

 **Ja ne!**


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